Week Five - Bliss Body - Anandamaya Kosha

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for being there last Sunday as we continued inward through to koshas and explored the intuitive body known as vijnanamaya kosha. If you missed practice last week, the gist was simple; trust in how you feel and follow what feels better. This is the intuitive path, mārga. 

The more time I spend on Instragram (save me!) the more I see how often yoga is portrayed as a physically focused pursuit. i.e how to get into the perfect yogic pose. I see reels of wonderfully knowledgable teachers twisting and moving people into various shapes. Right and wrong. This way, not that way. 

One of the most important things I have learned through all of my various anatomy and alignment trainings is that every person is uniquely and undeniably different. We have enormous skeletal differences (bone shapes and lengths vary hugely), neurological peculiarities (we perceive pain, comfort, and safety very differently), and general day to day emotional variability. Which means there is no such thing as one perfect shape for everybody. 

You know what feels right for you. Don't listen to any teacher who tries to tell you otherwise! Rather than making yoga into a goal-orientated sport of trying to squeeze bodies into poses, use it instead as a practice for cultivating confidence in your ability to feel for and follow what you know is right. Your alignment is unique to you, it changes every single day, and if you can practice finding it on your mat - you might find it easier to practice finding it in your life as well. Cue the glorious end of people pleasing! 

This week I am so excited for our theme because we are coming to the fifth kosha; the anandamaya kosha - our blissful body. When I was studying yoga therapy, we had a task one day to write down yoga practices that would represent the different koshas. Grounding sequences for the physical body, breath-work practices for the energetic body, and so on. 

When we came to the anandamaya kosha, the blissful body, I remember taking out my notebook and drawing a big fat picture of me laughing in a bubble bath.

The anandamaya kosha is the place where you don't have a care in the world. If the wisdom body we explored last week is aligned with purpose and right action, feeling into your path, the blissful body is a like a little child playing on a beach. Careless. Free. Wild. Laughing. Falling over. Splashing. Looking for shells. Hugging friends. Doing cartwheels. Building sandcastles.

You get it.

Can you remember the last time you felt free? The last time you let yourself enjoy something fully? When you could relax into something luxurious, eat something delicious, or maybe even say yes to something a bit reckless and fun?

When we're laughing from our bellies, we're in alignment with our anandamaya kosha. 

In line with that, expect a relaxed yoga practice this week! A little bit silly. A few fun shapes. Full of invitation for you to follow what feels right for you and explore your mind and body. And, of course, a sweet savasana to finish. 

 I can't wait! If you haven't booked in, please send on a little message so I can save your spot. This Sunday June 1st, 6:30pm at Thrive, Greystones. I'll see you there!

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

By David Whyte

Le grá mór,

Macha